Major League Baseball
See also: Major League Baseball (better Wikipedia page) Major League Baseball (abbreviated MLB) is a pro baseball league in North America. There are 30 teams, 29 in the US, and 1 in Canada. It was started in 1869 with the National League aka NL. Later in 1901, the AL or American League joined. Each league has 8 charter franchises. Seasons Preseason Before the baseball teams start playing in the regular season, spring training games are played. These games warm up players who have had no baseball activity in nearly half a year. These games take about a month to complete, and each team belongs to either the Cactus League or the Grapefruit League. After spring training, the teams are ready to play baseball every day. Regular season The regular season starts in late March or early April. The schedule lasts 162 games. Usually, the series of games against a single team is 3 games. But, sometimes there are 2- and 4-game series, and doubleheaders and made up games from rainouts result in 1- and 5-game series. All-Star Break and Game The All-Star Break is a 4-day-long break lasting from a Monday through a Thursday in July, just after the halfway point in the season. During this time, the best players from each league compete in the All-Star Game. One day prior to this event, the Home Run Derby takes place, when one team captain from each league that hit lots of homers in the first half of the season chooses three other players from their league. Afterwards, the players separate and try to hit as many home runs as possible with 10 outs. Outs are balls that are not home runs, and are in fair territory, or a missed ball swung at. However, if the batter takes a pitch, then that is NOT an out. Those pitches do not count. Postseason Since 2012, the postseason consists of 4 rounds. #Wild Card Game: a game with the two teams with the best record that missed their division's first place. In all, there are 4 wild cards in the MLB. (since 2012) #Division Series: two best-of-5 series in each league. The team with the best record among division winners play the winner of the wild card game. The team with the second- and third-best record play each other. (since 1995) #Championship Series: a best of 7 series in each league featuring the winners of the Division Series. The winners of this series wins the pennant for their league. (since 1969) #World Series: a best of 7 series featuring the pennant winners of each league. Offseason The offseason is the time of the season when there is no major league baseball. List of Teams American League AL East *New York Yankees *Baltimore Orioles *Toronto Blue Jays (the only baseball team in Canada) *Boston Red Sox *Tampa Bay Rays AL Central *Detroit Tigers *Cleveland Indians *Chicago White Sox *Minnesota Twins *Kansas City Royals AL West *Texas Rangers *Seattle Mariners *Houston Astros *Los Angeles Angels *Oakland Athletics National League NL East *New York Mets *Miami Marlins *Atlanta Braves *Philadelphia Phillies *Washington Nationals NL Central *Pittsburgh Pirates *Milwaukee Brewers *Cincinnati Reds *Chicago Cubs *St. Louis Cardinals NL West *San Francisco Giants *Los Angeles Dodgers *San Diego Padres *Colorado Rockies *Arizona Diamondbacks Video Games There are many MLB video games, such as Major League Baseball 2K12, my personal fave. You can create speedy pitchers named Randy Ross, or power hitters like Carlos Damon. You can have speedy catchers, which is oxymoronic, like Graham Stodolski. Broadcasting Fox and ESPN broadcast games weekly and exclusively. FOX broadcasts up to three possible games to see on Saturday based on geography and the teams playing, and ESPN broadcasts games on Sunday night. TBS broadcasts Sunday afternoon games, but are blacked out in the participating teams' local markets. See: on Fox, on ESPN, and on TBS 2013 season The Red Sox won the World Series in 2013. FUDGE!!!!!!! No! They lost 128974092379817038471923 World Series games. This is impossible! Someone trade David Ortiz to the Yankees! They'll call it The Curse of the Papi. Category:MLB Category:Baseball Category:Randomness